And in light of the current status, one wonders what they gave all for...

U.S. Conceding Rebels Control Regions of Iraq

"Mr. Rumsfeld said Iraqi officials understood they must regain control of the insurgent safe havens. "They get it, and will find a way over time to deal with it,'' he said.

"But General Myers said the Iraqi forces would probably not be ready to confront insurgents in those areas until the end of this year.

"Their comments, which came after a two-day spike in violence in Iraq led to a surge in American military deaths, represented an acknowledgment that the Americans had failed to end an increasingly sophisticated insurgency in important Sunni-dominated areas and in certain Shiite enclaves. Fighting raged on Tuesday in Sadr City, in Baghdad, as Shiite militiamen loyal to Moktada al-Sadr ended a self-declared cease-fire.

"The officials' assessment also underscored the difficulty of pacifying Iraq in time for elections scheduled for January. The cities of greatest rebel control are Ramadi, Falluja, Baquba and Samarra, in the so-called Sunni triangle, west and north of Baghdad, where Saddam Hussein remains popular and many forces loyal to him have gathered strength."

Btw, is Limbaugh 1) back on the dope and/or 2) still on Armed Forces Radio? I can't imagine this going over real well if heard by those serving in Iraq:

"-- do you know how many students commit suicide on American university campuses in America every year? The number is 1,000. Do you know how many Americans die on a highways [sic] every year in this country? Try 47,000 to 50,000"

Yes, we still get a daily dose of Rush overseas. They give us some choice programs.

There was a letter printed in Stars & Stripes a week or 2 ago, and it was from a soldier in Iraq who wanted the paper to stop printing a daily death toll. He argued that it put an unnecessarily negative spin on our activities in Iraq and caused American civilians to lose support for the war. He also said they should run a daily toll with information on such things as how many Iraqi kids had been helped by soldiers and such.

I personally think it's important to acknowledeg our dead, and not just with a count, but with photos and a biography. But his letter made me think about the things we don't see on the news. For instance, American dentists meeting with Iraqi dentists for an exchange of new information and techniques. That's pretty cool, well, it is to me since I'm a nut for dental hygeine.

If I turn on the TV, I get a lot of news briefs like that.

If we want American troops to stop dying, we need a massive assault on the insurgents. Not that I think anyone higher up in the CofC gives a flying fig what happens to individual soldiers. Or that anyone has come up with a viable exit plan, or ANY exit plan.

"He was hoping [the military] could do a lot of good, rebuild the schools," said his mother, Eileen Shea of Northwest Washington.

"But the decorated Marine instead found himself involved in frequent skirmishes with Iraqi insurgents. On Tuesday, he was killed by hostile fire, the third member of the armed forces from the District to die in Iraq and at least the 41st soldier from the District, Virginia or Maryland killed in the conflict."

"A classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared for President Bush in late July spells out a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq, government officials said Wednesday.

"The estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.

""There's a significant amount of pessimism," said one government official who has read the document, which runs about 50 pages. The officials declined to discuss the key judgments - concise, carefully written statements of intelligence analysts' conclusions - included in the document."

Okay, from what my Dad has said of Vietnam, if you got sent over to fight in Vietnam, you probably weren't coming back (though of course there where those who did, such as Kerry). Over 50,000 died serving in Vietnam, according to statistics I've seen.

So now we have Iraq. At one point there were over 100,000 serving there, and some have come home and others have gone to take their place. So we have more than 100,000 serving and just over 1000 dead. That means if you serve in Iraq, chances are only 1% that you will die while serving.

So I'm sorry, but I fail to see the comparison between Iraq and Vietnam. It just ain't there, folks.

I think every death is a heartbreaking loss. Death number 39 is just as heartbreaking as death 1039. So Vietnam your chances of dying were 10%. If 200,000 Americans have served in Iraq to day and so far 1052 are dead, that is 0.5%. Again, every death is heartbreaking. However, I think it's important that we keep things in perspective and not make comparisons that aren't accurate.

However, I think it's important that we keep things in perspective and not make comparisons that aren't accurate.

You know, I've seen your posts around here (especially in the Disenfrachised Voters thread) and frankly, you're in no position to lecture anyone on what type of comparasions they can or cannot make or what's 'accurate'.

You gonna tell these Vietnam vets they can't make the comparison:

"In the case of Iraq and Vietnam, both they found out it's a long process. It takes much more time than expected and unfortunately a lot of lives can be lost in the process," Vietnam veteran Ashley Davis said.

"Another issue facing American soldiers in Iraq is the uncertainty of who's friend and who's foe, a constant battle inside the battle that Vietnam veterans also faced. In Vietnam, you had a hard time, many times knowing who the enemy was because they were farmers by day, fighters by night, and you have same problem in Iraq because you don't know necessarily who's the enemy," veteran Darrell Gilgan said."

"The last time the United States was enmeshed in a larger and more protracted conflict was in Vietnam a generation ago. Comparisons between the two are frequent now. The Iraq war marks the first time since Vietnam that U.S. troops have been involved in sustained combat for more than a few months. And for now, at least, the Iraq war seems to have no obvious end in sight.

"Part of the problem America faced in Vietnam was the inability to define the end — what President Lyndon Johnson called the "light at the end of the tunnel" — or to measure progress in getting there, says Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who now heads a Washington think tank.

"North Vietnam's willingness to sacrifice its sons guaranteed continuation of the fighting, Krepinevich says. The United States was not outfought. It was "out-bled" — the same strategy the jihadists apparently mean to duplicate in a different form today, he says."

Personally, I think the Vietnam comparison is apt in some ways but hardly a carbon copy. But the others I think that the Iraq adventure is somewhat similar to (Israel=Lebanon, Soviet Union=Afghanistan and France=Algiera) aren't real happy endings either.

Personally, I think the Vietnam comparison is apt in some ways but hardly a carbon copy. But the others I think that the Iraq adventure is somewhat similar to (Israel=Lebanon, Soviet Union=Afghanistan and France=Algiera) aren't real happy endings either.

In re Israel/Lebanon, yeah, somewhat similar ... but only somewhat. The quagmire thing is certainly similar. The fact that northern Israeli towns were being shelled regularly from the south of Lebanon, which is what started Israel's "adventure" before it turned into something else ... well, there's a difference for you ... direct threat.

Th similarities to Viet Nam go beyond the death count. This war has the potential to drag on for decades and involve more carnage. We are still early enough to change course before it becomes as large as Viet Nam.

There was a story in our local town paper about a marine killed in Iraq. It was heartbreaking- he had just found his birth mother and they had begun a relationship- then she lost him again. It was such a sensless loss of life.

How can we say there will be no draft and what will happen to our own children when they come of age? The potential for another Viet Nam is there. We have no exit strategy.